652 BOOK REVIEWS

Bruner relates, from the vantage point of one of the protagonists, how the ‘cognitive revolution’ set out to replace the more reductionist behaviorism (no room to examine its merits in the book, it seems) by creating a ‘science of meaning’. He argues that it has been distorted into a new reductionism of mind through computational models which concentrate on information processing to the detriment of the subjective content and cultural influence, thus losing the crucial under- standing of meaning. It is not, therefore, a new thesis but a wholesome integration of support for a time-weathered idea. The reader obtains privileged access to Bruner’s own set of ‘meanings’ and understandings, from one who has ‘been there’ and ‘done that’ and is therefore qualified to take his own advice and ‘go meta’ in the search for meaning. The result is an eloquent and erudite synthesis calling on philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology and psychology. He advocates the adoption of ‘folk psychology’ to put right the omission.

The real value of this work is in its highlighting of this easily-ignored truism. And it may be timely. For example, in recent years the study of psychosis has focussed increasingly on cognitive tests of abstract reasoning and reaction times. There has been less emphasis on the meaning of the psychotic themes to the subject-a glaring omission.

As a child of that cognitive revolution, perhaps I should salve my conscience. I shall follow Bruner in making use of the recency effect to help redress the balance. He ends:

“In the end, even the strongest causal explanations of the human condition, cannot make plausible sense without being interpreted in the light of the symbolic world that constitutes human culture” (p. 138).

CAROLYN JOHN

C. G. LAST and M. HERSEN (Eds): Handbook of Child Psychiatric Diagnosis. Wiley, New York (1989). xviii + 574 pp. jZ41.50.

This handbook is presented as a resource book for clinicians making diagnoses in childhood pathology in accordance with the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As such, it may be of restricted diagnostic value for clinicians in Britain, but is of interest as a substantive textbook of childhood psychopathology. The handbook contains chapters written by clinicians and researchers in psychiatry and psychology. Included are recent empirical findings on the diagnostic categories included in DSM-III.

The book is divided into four sections. The first part is devoted to a general overview of the field, including a discussion of the history and development of childhood and adolescent psychiatric diagnosis, as well as the reliability and validity of these diagnostic categories.

Part two covers specific diagnoses including the DSM-III categories of mental retardation, attention deficit disorders, conduct disorders, anxiety disorders, autism and other psychotic disorders, anorexia and bulimia nervosa, enuresis and encopresis, and fire setting and pyromania (eighteen disorders covered).

The third part is devoted to special topics of interest to mental health practitioners who work with children, including: developmental issues, diagnostic interviews with children, epidemiology, and child diagnosis and behavioral assessment in children. Finally, the handbook looks at future directions in child psychiatric diagnosis.

This handbook is written for doctors, but is a useful text for trainees and those wanting to refresh their knowledge of childhood psychiatric diagnosis. The focus of the book is clearly on diagnosis, and management and treatment are considered very briefly. What this text does provide are thorough descriptions of the common psychiatric diagnoses in childhood, with impressive attention to the important issues of reliability and validity of these diagnoses in a clinical setting.

MICHELLE NEW

N. ROSS REAT: Origins of Indian Psychology. Asian Humanities Press, Berkeley, Calif. (1990). viii + 356 pp. $60.00 Hardback; $25.00 Paperback.

This is an ambitious book which examines the psychological concepts of early Indian philosophical traditions. Speculation about the nature of mind and consciousness was a major aspect of Indian thought from the earliest times, and in this sense Indian ‘psychology’ has a long history. Dr Reat, an Australian scholar with a thorough knowledge of the original Indian sources, has attempted to examine the origins and development of these psychological ideas. He focuses on the Vedic literature, especially the Rg Veda, the Upanishads and the Pali literature of Early Buddhism. He discusses the concepts with clarity and much analytical skill, always citing evidence from the literature.

For Indiologists and historians of Indian religion and philosophy, this book provides valuable insights into, among others, the complex relationships among the three traditions mentioned above. For present day psychologists and particularly behaviour therapists, it provides interesting information about what might be called the ‘pre-history’ of psychology. One’s understanding of psychological concepts can only be enhanced by a knowledge of comparable concepts that existed in the history and prehistory of the discipline. This easy to read but thoroughly scholarly work will give the interested modern psychologist a clear idea of these concepts as they existed and evolved in early Indian thought. The book is particularly strong on Buddhist psychology, on which the author offers many new ideas and interpretations, some of which are bound to stimulate debate. Considering the current and growing interest in Buddhism among Western psychologists and therapists, this aspect of the book will make it particularly valuable to them.

In conclusion, Dr Reat has produced a work of considerable scholarship, which makes a significant and original contribution to the understanding of an important aspect of the pre-history of psychology. It will be some time before it is rivalled either in scope or in depth.

P. DE SILVA

L. REZNEK: The Philosophical Defence of Psychiatry. Routledge, London (1991). xii + 252 pp. $35.00.

The author constructs a defence of psychiatry-in particular its medical model and concept of mental illness-against a variety of influential critiques, including those of Freud, Eysenck, Laing, Szasz, Sedgwick, Scheff and Foucault. The